Tag: R.I.P.
R.I.P. Paper Airline Tickets
by Michael Yessis | 06.02.08 | 10:58 AM ET
The 240 airlines belonging to the International Air Transport Association, which represents 94 percent of the world’s airline traffic, officially went digital yesterday. Most U.S. airlines had already made the switch to electronic tickets years ago, but paper tickets had remained in use by many international carriers. The IATA projects that all-digital ticketing will save $3 billion a year in costs—as well as 50,000 trees. Perhaps all the savings will allow them to bring back free snacks.
Related on World Hum:
* Airlines Make ‘Last Call’ For Paper Tickets
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Yahoo! BuzzR.I.P. Sydney Pollack
by Jim Benning | 05.27.08 | 5:24 PM ET
Among other career highlights, of course, he brought Isak Dinesen’s “Out of Africa” to the big screen.
R.I.P. Diana Barnato Walker
by Eva Holland | 05.21.08 | 3:57 PM ET
Diana Barnato Walker, the first British woman to break the sound barrier, died last week at age 90. Walker got her start as a civilian pilot in Britain’s Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War, ferrying more than 240 Spitfires around the country. On August 26, 1963, she took her first flight at supersonic speeds, reaching a mind-boggling 2,030 kilometers per hour.
Remembering Octavio Paz
by Jim Benning | 04.16.08 | 11:35 AM ET
This week is the 10th anniversary of the death of the great Mexican writer and poet Octavio Paz. The Los Angeles Times’ La Plaza blog notes that the Nobel Prize winner is being remembered in Mexico City with conferences and radio programs. For travelers, Paz’s Labyrinth of Solitude is a challenging but essential book for understanding Mexican culture. Paz also wrote a travel memoir of sorts, In Light of India, based on his time as a diplomat in the country.
R.I.P. Herb Peterson
by Eva Holland | 04.01.08 | 12:13 PM ET
Herb Peterson, the inventor of the Egg McMuffin, died last week in Santa Barbara. He was 89. Peterson created the signature McDonald’s breakfast item in 1972, apparently inspired by his favorite, eggs Benedict. Road-trippers everywhere owe him a huge debt of thanks for cooking up that hot, fast, greasy meal to go, a classic choice for fueling the start of one long drive or celebrating the end of another.
R.I.P. Cachao
by Jim Benning | 03.24.08 | 10:25 AM ET
Iconic Hollywood Tower Records Building Faces Wrecking Ball
by Jim Benning | 01.30.08 | 11:40 AM ET
Photo by Alan Light via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
We recently noted the end of the rock ‘n’ roll balconies at Hollywood’s Hyatt “Riot House”—the very balconies where Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant once declared, “I’m a golden god!” Clearly, nothing is sacred in Hollywood.
R.I.P. Jack Byron Fields, Photo Essayist
by Jim Benning | 12.19.07 | 2:08 PM ET
Reports the San Francisco Chronicle: Fields’s “photographic essays from far-flung places appeared in magazines such as Life, Look and National Geographic and helped to transform photojournalism.” He was 87.
R.I.P. 64 Journalists
by Jim Benning | 12.18.07 | 4:00 PM ET
That’s the number of journalists killed around the globe this year—the most in over a decade. Not surprisingly, Iraq claimed more lives than any other country, 31, nearly all of them Iraqi. “Somalia was ranked the second deadliest country with seven journalists deaths in 2007,” Reuters reports. “Sri Lanka and Pakistan each recorded five journalists deaths, and Afghanistan and Eritrea each had two deaths.” One positive note: For the first time in more than a decade, there wasn’t a single reporter murdered in Colombia. Could it be further evidence of this?
R.I.P. Ike Turner
by Eva Holland | 12.13.07 | 10:37 AM ET
Whatever you may think of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Ike Turner, who died yesterday at age 76, his contributions to music—and specifically to road music—were enormous. Ike and Tina’s cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Proud Mary, which Ike arranged along with drummer Soko Richardson, has got to be one of the greatest road songs (okay, river songs) of all time.
Related on World Hum:
* Rock Stars in Hotels: ‘Whatever Happened to the Good Old Days?’
* Manu Chao: Catching up With the ‘Traveling Man’
Photo: AP
R.I.P. New Frontier, Las Vegas Strip’s Second Hotel
by Jim Benning | 11.13.07 | 12:01 PM ET
Photo: AP
Las Vegas lost a piece of history early this morning. The New Frontier hotel-casino, which opened in 1942 and hosted Elvis Presley’s first performance in the city, was imploded to make way for a new megaresort scheduled to debut in 2011. The hotel’s destruction, along with that of the Stardust earlier this year, is part of a “dramatic, and expensive, facelift for the northern Strip,” writes the AP’s Ryan Nakashima. Real estate prices nearby have skyrocketed and several billion-dollar condo and resort developments—including one backed by Dubai World—are scheduled to open in the next several years.
R.I.P. Tony Ryan, Founder of Ryanair
by Michael Yessis | 10.04.07 | 10:21 AM ET
Plane Carrying Tourists Crashes in Phuket, Thailand
by Michael Yessis | 09.17.07 | 9:34 AM ET
More than 80 people were killed, including more than 50 foreigners, when an MD-82 operated by the budget airline One-Two-Go crashed Sunday on Phuket, Thailand’s popular resort island. News reports vary on the exact number killed and injured, but many note that it was Thailand’s worst air disaster in a decade.
R.I.P. Paul MacCready, ‘Father of Human-Powered Flight’
by Jim Benning | 08.30.07 | 12:41 PM ET
Paul MacCready, the engineer who designed the first plane to fly under only human power, has died at the age of 81. Reports the AP: “On Aug. 23, 1977, the MacCready-designed, lightweight Gossamer Condor made the first sustained, controlled flight powered solely by a human. The flight, pedal-powered by pilot Bryan Allen, lasted just 7 1/2 minutes but covered a figure-eight course with pylons a half-mile apart at the airport in Shafter, Calif.”
R.I.P. Rock ‘n’ Roll Balconies at Hyatt ‘Riot House’
by Jim Benning | 08.06.07 | 2:46 PM ET
Reports ‘Laurel Canyon’ author Michael Walker: “The textured concrete balconies (above) from which Led Zeppelin and entourage hurled bottles of Dom Perignon, Zeppelin drummer John Bonham teetered and singer Robert Plant crowed ‘I’m a golden god!’ (immortalized in Cameron Crowe’s ‘Almost Famous’) are being ripped out like so many meth-rotted teeth as part of a $24 million renovation of the property.” The West Hollywood hotel on the Sunset Strip is replacing the balconies with glass that will enclose the rooms. That might be an improvement to the property, but writes Walker: “[I]t’s always mournful when another little piece of L.A.‘s anarchic rock and roll heart is taken away.” The changes are part of a larger trend, Walker e-mails:
R.I.P. Clem Lindenmayer, Travel Writer
by Jim Benning | 07.30.07 | 1:34 PM ET
We’d been following the search for Clem Lindenmayer since early June, when news spread that the Australian travel writer disappeared while hiking near Minya Konka in western China. Now, news media are reporting that the 47-year-old died on the mountain. His body was discovered by villagers July 19, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Few other details are available.
R.I.P. Lady Bird Johnson
by Jim Benning | 07.11.07 | 10:08 PM ET
Among the many accomplishments of Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady of the United States who died this afternoon at the age of 94: helping to beautify the American landscape, including highways.
R.I.P. Colin Fletcher, ‘The Father of Modern-Day Backpacking’
by Jim Benning | 06.18.07 | 12:13 PM ET
The author and adventurer best known for his seminal backpacking guide The Complete Walker and his Grand Canyon narrative The Man Who Walked Through Time died last week at the age of 85. “The Complete Walker” was first published in 1968, and it was enormously influential in its day. Backpacker magazine editor in chief Jonathan Dorn told the Los Angeles Times: “He brought this idea that you didn’t have to be a nut case to take long solitary walks in the wilderness at a time when a lot of people were really looking for ways to create holistic lives and escape from the craziness of Vietnam and the stresses of the ‘60s.”
R.I.P. William Becker, Co-Founder of Motel 6
by Michael Yessis | 05.14.07 | 9:23 AM ET
Photo by independentman via Flickr (Creative Commons).
The “6” in Motel 6 famously represents the $6 William Becker and his co-founder, Paul Greene, charged travelers per night when the budget chain opened its first property in Santa Barbara, California in 1962. According to an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Becker “had been inspired by a monthlong, cross-country car trip from Santa Barbara to his family’s farm in Greenwich, N.Y., in the summer of 1960.” The two founders leveraged their background in building low-cost tract homes, and turned out rooms with no-iron sheets, coin-operated televisions and “shower stalls with rounded edges rather than corners to reduce cleaning time.”
R.I.P. (and Aloha) Don Ho
by Jim Benning | 04.16.07 | 11:21 AM ET
Legendary performer Don Ho has died of heart failure at the age of 76. Ho was a cultural ambassador and icon, bringing the sound of Hawaii to the world and performing for countless visitors to Waikiki over more than four decades. The Honolulu Advertiser has put together a nice tribute with photos, music clips and a place to post memories and comments about Ho’s life. A typical entry: “My husband and I have seen Don every year for the last 38 years…Don Ho was Hawaii and the spirit of Aloha he created throughout his career will never die.”